4 Responses to “Autumn Leaves”

our area is suffering a fungus problem this year. the leaves here go from green to brown and then fall off. the sugar maples hardest hit, no vibrant red or orange this year it seems. there was a writeup in our local paper about the lawns producing mass mushroom/fungus growth this fall. we experienced that in our shaded area of lawn. our next door neighbor moved back home to the boston area, he said the same thing there, fungus, not much color this year.

we do, however, have a bumper crop of black walnuts…in the yard, complete with squirrels. ugh

We found walnuts about 45 years ago while I was in the Scouts and taking a hike. I remember “Husking” them to get to the “nut”. What we didn’t know was the brown stains you get on your hands. First and last time for that.

DNWsaid

A walnut tree is one of those things that is special until you actually have one or two or ten. I still do have a fondness for them, and the scent of the husks reminds me of being a kid and traveling out to “Granny’s” (we never called her that) on a fall weekend.

I used to buy black walnut seedlings from the soil conservation district and then replant them on various properties. Given the right climate and soil, they throve. Given marginal conditions, not so much.

You occasionally see them planted on the few farms in the area we hunt, but they seldom bear. Whereas 250 miles to the south, the trees are laden with the fruit. You do see confirmed though, the fact that some northern farmer back in the 1930’s had essentially the same hopeful idea I had in the 1990s, when I began to think that I could supplement the red oaks and beech with a more reliable mast producing crop. The old farmer’s motivations were probably not so grandiose, however.

I doubt that he was deluded enough to imagine that in twenty years he would be strolling down pecan plantation like aisles of beech, oak, walnut, and hickory, while contemplating which game he was going to harvest that afternoon.

In these northern areas, I’ve had the best luck with the white walnut, which seems to require a less rich soil. Several varieties of hickories all failed, and the hazelnuts and persimmons, while able to grow tolerably well despite some die-back from freezing, couldn’t withstand the additional constant and determined browsing of the elk and deer, which would break through the light fencing I tried. Same with crab apples; a hundred or so of which served for a few short years as a recurring snack for the local cervids.

Tree tubes, just meant that a five foot living stem inside the tube persisted for the purpose of regenerating a fresh meal every spring.

English walnuts do well back where I live, but of course the tree rats take every last one before they even fully develop. Like liberals, they have nothing better to do than to camp near to where someone else is producing something of value, and then try to move in on it when it is ripe .. or before.

If I keep on with this commentary, I’ll next be relating what these various pests did to my wildlife plantings in even more tedious detail, so I better just call a time out for now …

My favorite Walnut tree is the Black Walnut. It is a great tree to cut down and and cut into one or two inch boards. Then let the boards dry for a year by painting the ends, and putting 1/4 sticks between layers. It’s also best to turn them over face wise and length wise. After drying, then find a lunber yard that will plane the boards to 3/4 or 1-1/2 inch thick, then make furniture. So far, I’ve made a corner china cabinet, a sofa table, a corner half high cabinet for a TV stand, a flower stand, a curio cabinet and a trestle table from the 1-1/2 inch stock. And thanks DNW. ps, my daughter built a walnut bird house.